by M. D. Cooper
This was one of those infuriating human anomalies that made no sense whatsoever. The communications array had been forgotten by everyone. It had been safely sipping information from the human mesh for years. It had been in the center of countless useless military operations and had never once been approached. The data did not equal this breach.
Camaris brought her awareness back to human time. She watched the Special Ops soldiers move through the outer sections of the communications facility.
She scanned their Links for identifying information and came back with the infuriating short tokens typical of Marsian special operators. They erased their memories and equipped them with specially crafted backstories. She easily sidestepped their onboard NSAIs and rifled through their current motivations without finding a reason for their mission.
They didn’t know why they were there.
Typical human ignorance.
Camaris sent commands to the closest ground forces to begin localized bombing sweeps. If she didn’t get what she wanted from the communications array, she would destroy the entire facility. If necessary, she would scrap her plan and simply destroy the asteroid.
Vesta could not contain Camaris’ anger.
The human responded better than she expected. She watched as he accosted the two soldiers with utility drones, seized them, and rendered them inoperable. With that problem normalized for the time being, her operative returned to his workshop to execute the plan.
As one part of her mind controlled space battle, midrange atmospheric fighting, and the ground attack, her focus drilled in on the human, studying him as he executed his commands.
The communications array inserted itself as a node in the Weapon Born network for several minutes, until the moment presented itself and he copied the mind image of Kylan Carthage.
The thread of joy slipped back into Camaris’ thoughts as she observed. She tittered with glee.
On the edges of the Weapon Born communication net, she heard Lyssa responding to a request.
Camaris sneered. Her enemy was so close.
Camaris stopped herself from surging through the Weapon Born net. She yearned to wrap her powerful thoughts around Lyssa like a garrote to choke out her consciousness.
She had been so close before and victory had been stolen. She would not lose again.
A glitch in one of the Marsian operatives drew her attention. One of them had woken up and was watching her human.
The Marsian was already plotting how he would neutralize the other man, even though he had no idea what his adversary was doing, or why he was even present.
It was so human that he would focus on accomplishing his task even as he didn’t know why. His only drive was to do, to execute, to flex his muscle and squeeze. He was alone, cut off from his headquarters, but still bent on executing his obsolete orders.
A glimmer in the human’s mind caught Camaris’ attention. There was something anomalous about this human. Something didn’t match in his Link.
She studied him through the local sensors, watching him frown with his eyes closed as he tried to make sense of his situation.
There was a mistake in his neural overlay. She focused the brunt of her intelligence on it for a microsecond, and the answer did not present itself.
Camaris noted her frustration and then let the irritation go. Her other human, Amstrad, had accomplished his task.
She had her bait.
A second bout of tittering escaped her mind, pure pleasure at a task complete.
She would pull the data off his network shortly. He had filled the local seed and her forces would arrive to seize it. Then she would crack the Weapon Born open like an egg.
Camaris allowed herself a moment of satisfaction, watching with rare joy as the interlocking pieces of her plan settled into place.
WEAPON BORN
STELLAR DATE: 03.28.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Emerson Sharp Communications Station
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Ty stared at the Weapon Born seed in its cradle on the workbench. The small silver cylinder didn’t look capable of holding the mind that was communicating with him now.
He didn’t trust the Weapon Born but didn’t understand exactly why he felt that way. He had heard of the human-based AIs in various mission briefings, and despite the fact that they were aligned with humanity, at least as far as he could tell, there was the additional fact that everything they seemed to do assisted the Terran Space Force.
As far as he could tell, the Weapon Born showed little love for Mars. He also couldn’t shake the vague disgust whenever he thought about how Weapon Born had been made. Supposedly the later models were all made from stock images—as science improved the process—but there was no denying that their root had been a human child. A child that experienced fear and pain. The thought stabbed him deeply, another bubbling feeling from the memories he no longer had.
Some Weapon Born, like Lyssa, had showed amazing adaptability at being implanted in humans or controlling massive amounts of other SAIs and NSAIs, feats that had so far only been accomplished by multimodal artificial intelligence.
That was all egghead shit, as far as Ty was concerned. He had one mission at the moment, and that was to get Manny out of this station.
The problem was that Ty had received no communication from their higher headquarters. He had a preset pickup location, but if his orientation on the ground bombardment was correct, that area was currently a maelstrom of shrapnel and rock. Without a new pickup location, he and Manny would be running in front of the oncoming bombardment, and he knew they couldn’t run fast enough.
If she tried to double-cross them, he’d deal with that when it came. For now, they simply needed a way off the planet.
Manny said.
Ty shook his head.
Ty glanced at the articulated arm hanging silently on top of the drone. He chuckled at the mental image of the awkward mechanism making its way across the surface of Vesta. It wouldn’t get far before its rubber tires sank in the dust, and it would have to pull itself forward by the massive arm like some damaged crab.
He stopped himself. He was being cruel.
The Weapon Born had done nothing to harm him. Its peers were assisting humanity in this fight when they didn’t have to. At least for now, they were on the same side, and he couldn’t, in good conscience, leave a sentient thing to be destroyed by the oncoming bombardment.
Ty caught a cautious glance from Manny, but only returned the stare. Manny shrugged. He seemed to share the same resolve to help the Weapon Born.
Emerson didn’t answer for a few seconds, then replied,
Ty nodded to Manny.
Manny said.
IMPASSE
STELLAR DATE: 03.28.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: High Orbit, TSS Charging Rhino
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“General,” a lieutenant at the comms station called. “There’s a request from Lyssa. The Weapon Born.”
Yarnes shot the younger officer an exasperated look. “I think we all know who she is. Let her through.”
Rather than a voice over the speaker, Lyssa appeared in the holotank in the center of the command deck. Bathed in blue light, the young woman with long brown hair stood with her hands on her hips, looking at General Yarnes.
“General,” she said. “I think I’ve determined why Psion launched this attack. I need your help.”
“What is it?” Yarnes said. He rose to his feet to stand in front of her at the holotank.
“Camaris copied Kylan Carthage and created her own seed from his image. A Marsian soldier has the seed now in a shuttle that will be taking off from the vicinity of Divalia Fossa in approximately two minutes. I need your help to protect that shuttle.”
Yarnes bit his lip. “You’ve given me plenty of warning here,” he said, not hiding his sarcasm.
His forces were engaged throughout the local battle space. He had only a small reserve of Jovian Combine fighters that could barely protect themselves from Psion. He could use them as a defensive line against attack on the shuttle, but he doubted they could get there in time.
“Send me the coordinates of that shuttle,” he said.
Lyssa stepped back, and Vesta appeared in the holotank. She focused on the crevasse. The shuttle was deep within the crevasse, over twenty-five kilometers down, drifting almost languidly in the asteroids low-g. Psion forces were closing on the edge of the trough, both ground mechs and the swarms of ‘splitters’ as they’d come to be called. As Yarnes watched, Psion moved to overwhelm the tiny ship.
The most direct path off Vesta was straight up. Psion was blocking that path, so whoever was piloting the shuttle would need to navigate the trough until they found a free path into outer space. Flying so close to the rocky edge of the crevasse was near suicide.
“I hope you’ve got a good pilot on that thing,” he said.
“It’s going to be the image of Kylan,” Lyssa said. “He’s one of the best I’ve got.”
“Well,” Yarnes said. “I can pull everything out of their current engagement and put them on your folks. But that’s going to bring even more Psion in as well. Is that what you want to do?”
Lyssa nodded solemnly. “I think the only way we can get them out alive is to flood that location with as many ships as possible. They’re small, they can navigate the chaos.”
“I don’t really like those odds,” Yarnes said. “But I agree we have to keep that seed away from Psion. The last thing I need is a fleet of Weapon Born splitters knocking on my door.”
“Very true,” Lyssa said. “I’ve managed to keep any Weapon Born out of Psion’s hands for thirty years. I don’t intend to lose one now. I need to inform you that I will destroy the shuttle if necessary. You should also notify the Marsians that two of their Special Operations soldiers are on the shuttle. Their names are Manny Hesteros and Ty Fisk.
Yarnes nodded. “I understand. We’ll inform the Marsians. Give me a minute to issue commands, and then I’ll send you the execution order. We will direct all forces to Divalia Fossa.”
Yarnes wondered what two Marsian Special Ops soldiers were doing on the surface, but he put that question away for another time.
Lyssa folded her arms and nodded. “Thank you, General,” she said. “Please tell the Marsians we’ll do everything we can to get them out alive.”
Yarnes gave her a tight smile. “Stars’ luck to you, Lyssa.”
LONG ARRIVAL
STELLAR DATE: 03.28.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Emerson Sharp Communications Station
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
With the seed tucked inside the cargo pocket on the front of his EV suit, Ty followed Manny up the stairs back to the upper levels of the communications station.
Manny seemed to have regained most of his strength and moved with deliberate speed, even while carrying the unconscious Data Hoarder over his shoulder. Manny had been muttering to himself for the last fifteen minutes about how much he wanted to hurt Amstrad, frustrated but grateful with Ty for having saved him from the situation.
“I’m going to get you back,” Manny said. “Believe me. This guy’s going to pay. But I owe you big time.”
Ty had told him not to worry about it, but he knew Manny’s confidence was shaken. After the mishap during the training incident, this was just another blow to his confidence.
They were a team, and they had each other’s backs. He knew that Manny would have done the same for him in a similar situation.
As he walked, he couldn’t shake a vague unease in the pit of his stomach. Something about Emerson’s voice made him feel disconnected from the world around him.
The sensation was a combination of dizziness and the worry that everything had shifted a few centimeters, casting the world out of focus. Walls didn’t align properly, doors were in places he didn’t remember passing before. He’d experienced this same discontinuity not long after arriving at basic training. They called it memory sickness and it was something many of the special ops recruits experienced. Some never overcame the syndrome and disappeared into other jobs in the Mars 1 Guard. Ty had overcome the initial discomfort but had always wondered if something hadn’t been completely successful in his memory wipe.
Every time Emerson spoke, the sensation fuzzed back, reminding him that there were places in his mind he couldn’t access.
Ty grabbed a handrail on the side of the stairs and paused to take a breath. Above him, Manny noticed he’d stopped and turned to check on him.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Ty said. “I’m having a bit of memory sickness. Something about this place has jogged something loose. It’s making me feel tired. I’m working through it.”
“Do the numbers, like they taught us,” Manny replied.
The numbers were a mnemonic exercise designed to focus his thoughts on the task at hand. He first counted back from one hundred, then by twos, then by threes. The meditation technique focused his mind on the act of walking, and he was able to follow Manny for another ten minutes unt
il they reached the ground level of the outpost.
Ty nodded.
Leaving the stairs, Manny took a turn down an access tunnel that wasn’t how they had come before. The walls were reinforced like the bulkhead of a ship, with plas panels between each metal rib.
As Manny trudged ahead, Ty stopped in the center of the corridor, blinking as images flashed through his mind.
He had been in a similar place many times before. Only it had been completely round, and extended from an access ladder, all the way back to the engine section of the ship. A cold wave passed through his body, from the top of his head to his heels. He was sweating.
Ty shook his head and turned to look at one of the white plas panels. It wasn’t correct. There should have been drawings on its surface. He clearly remembered them. He remembered making drawings, scribbling with a crayon as he floated in zero-g, with laughter somewhere just out of sight.
He hadn’t been alone before.
He had been alone for a long time since leaving that place.
Manny stopped ten meters down the corridor and turned to look at Ty. He returned quickly, putting a hand on Ty’s shoulder. He shook him gently, then immediately tapped the Weapon Born seed in Ty’s cargo pocket.
Ty didn’t know how to answer. He felt the Weapon Born had somehow shaken loose some level of his memory, but he didn’t think it had been intentional. He remembered something about Kylan Carthage. The name had meaning for Ty, but he didn’t know what.
